


clinging to the shapes in the silence

by enbynewt (clockworkcorvids)



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Needles, Neurodivergent Newton Geiszler, No Dialogue, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Prompt Fill, Trans Male Character, Trans Newton Geiszler, me? projecting? it's more likely than you'd think, no beta we die like men, not my best work, thats it folks thats the prompt, unfortunately, voices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23133358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkcorvids/pseuds/enbynewt
Summary: If Newton Geiszler had to pick one thing in his life to call a motif, to call a thread of images or objects orideasthat ran throughout his entire existence, he’d probably pick the voices. After all, he’d had more than his fair share of them.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler & Hermann Gottlieb, Newton Geiszler & Precursors, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Kudos: 9





	clinging to the shapes in the silence

**Author's Note:**

> hi im very stressed and ive decided to pass the time until the source of said stress goes away by thinking about newton geiszler,,,,as you do
> 
> hope yall enjoy this blatant exercise in projection, and pls heed the tags! ♡ 
> 
> title from [constellations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eapTDC5es_4) by the oh hellos bc theyre basically all ive been listening to lately ~~when im not zoning out and blasting ok computer on repeat~~

If Newton Geiszler had to pick one thing in his life to call a motif, to call a thread of images or objects or  _ ideas _ that ran throughout his entire existence, he’d probably pick voices. After all, he’d had more than his fair share of them.

First, there had been the voice that came out of his mouth but made him uncomfortable, made him feel something prickly and jittery and  _ wrong _ , that was even worse when he heard it played back. High, scratchy, annoying. He figured it out eventually, but he hadn’t really realized that the source of the discomfort had to do with all the other discomfort, the  _ complete and profound state of existential unease _ , until it already began to fade, replaced by voice cracks and stubbly facial hair and acne all over his chin. 

There was his voice, beginning to sound right in ways he had never considered it could, tantalizingly deeper by little increments every two weeks, and when he played back the old videos after a few years, he started crying thinking about how far he’d come. He’d stopped disliking needles so much, too, had begun to tolerate them after the first few months and had eventually made it to the point where he went through the motions and barely hesitated before easing the uncomfortably wide, sharp, long,  _ everything _ \- it was just  _ uncomfortable _ , alright? - needle into his thigh every other week. 

There were the intrusive thoughts, too. Those were a constant, starting before the first puberty, occasionally leaving him alone for a while when the second puberty started, and coming back later, in full force. He learned to become the master of them, instead of the other way around, to treat them like a bad backseat driver and not much more, to analyze and question and critique them like he would a scientific paper or really  _ any _ media he consumed, to not hold himself to a different standard of mental  _ un _ health than he would anyone else he cared about. That didn’t make them go away, but it made them hold far less power over him.

There was the Drift, and that turned to two new voices that would sometimes echo across some otherworldly barrier and pop into Newt’s head. Hermann’s voice, and the voice of Otachi’s baby. The two of them made an odd pair, not with each other so much as each complimenting Newt, and he became all too familiar with the internal machinations of someone who thought he was not made for this world and something that actually was most  _ definitely _ not made for this world. He made a point, from then on, of paying more attention to Hermann’s body language, because his movements said things his mouth never could - never  _ would _ . His thoughts, when they appeared in Newt’s head, weren’t coherent words so much as images, not a voice so much as the idea of one - the Platonic approximation of one, observed through the shadow it cast. 

(For a while, things were alright. All the voices were balanced, harmonic, resonant.)

Then there were the Precursors. Their voices were like that of the baby Kaiju, but worse. A cacophony of screaming, of monstrous, grotesque roaring, was what Newton heard at first. It wasn’t as bad as the alternative, though, which came later - the odd buzzing, tinny sensation that was a little off from anything a human should have been able to hear, let alone comprehend at all. The worst part, too, was the way they drowned out Hermann’s voice in the Drift. And, after Newt left, Hermann might as well have really drowned, because he’d been slowly phased out of Newt’s life with the rising tide of demons trapping Newt within the confines of his own skull.

There was the absence of a voice, after things went to shit - they’d been shit for ten years, but this was after things really, fully and  _ truly _ , irrevocably went to shit. The Precursors left, regrouping, recuperating, and Newton was alone with the beating of his own heart, his own voice, and his intrusive thoughts. Finally being able to differentiate his own will - or what remained of it - from that of the Precursors was like wrangling his intrusive thoughts all over again, but infinitely worse. The silence in his cell was, by all means, deafening. He hated it so much, and whoever was watching him probably thought he was insane even more than he did.

At some point, sometime after the Precursors came back for one last run with his flesh and bone and blood, with his weak,  _ mortal _ ,  _ human _ body, he was drugged up on gods knew what to stop him hurting others - or himself - and he was delirious and trapped in limbo between his head and white walls, and there was Hermann’s voice again. Yes, it was external, it wasn’t the voice that used to lurk in the Drift, back before the Precursors had buried that beneath mounds of horror, but it breathed life into him. It -  _ he _ \-  _ Hermann _ \- reminded Newt of what his own voice was supposed to sound like, of what he was supposed to be; who he  _ was _ , beneath everything, even after ten years. Sometimes, Newt thought he didn’t deserve Hermann - who, tired and hurt, with what sometimes seemed like the entire world against him, still managed to be kind, patient, understanding; who still forgave and trusted and  _ loved _ Newt; who was the first and  _ only  _ one to ask to be let into his cell, where the haunted man might be able to hurt him; who stayed with him the entire time, no matter who or what he needed.

(When Newt muttered this to him in the middle of the night, Hermann pulled Newt’s head against his beating heart and insisted gently but firmly, in strained German that Newt somehow managed to understand despite still  _ not really being himself lately _ , that they were both flawed, and that was what made them human. And then he pressed a soft kiss to Newt’s forehead and told him to go back to sleep.)

And there was Newton Geiszler’s voice, fully his own, untainted by the Precursors, settled in a comfortable range after years and years of hormone injections, and he held onto it as a drowning man would a buoy crashing amongst the waves: untethered, but remaining afloat nonetheless. After the Precursors finally alighted and left him, his mind was a muddled mess of conversations, a dissonant orchestra where each instrument was tuned just a little too far off from the next to be harmonious. Sometimes he heard them echoing somewhere off in the distance, muffled by invisible walls, and sometimes he heard echoes of Otachi’s baby. Usually, he heard his own internal monologue, interspersed with the usual intrusive thoughts, and it was strange but certainly welcome to be alone in his head again. Sometimes, he even thought he was starting to sense Hermann’s presence again, the old Drift reigniting itself as time brought Newt further and further away from the Precursors. Mostly, though, he just enjoyed being himself again, in mind and in voice.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! c:
> 
> if you enjoyed this, i implore you to leave a kudos, and possibly also a comment! i crave validation, and seriously, feedback is what keeps me going as a fanfic writer and as a writer in general ♡


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